


Cornflower Blue; or, A Small Piece of Heaven

by InsertSthMeaningful



Series: Marguerite Hair and Iris Eyes [2]
Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types
Genre: Charles Xavier has a Ph.D in Adorable, Domestic Fluff, Erik Lehnsherr Loves Charles Xavier, Erik Lehnsherr's Gay Socialist Farm Island, M/M, Unofficial Sequel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-05
Updated: 2020-07-05
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:48:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,275
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25088683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsertSthMeaningful/pseuds/InsertSthMeaningful
Summary: Even months after Erik has invited Charles to Genosha, the latter is still settling in. However, his occupation as a teacher keeps him busy - as does the beautiful man with marguerite hair whom he can proudly call his husband.
Relationships: Erik Lehnsherr/Charles Xavier
Series: Marguerite Hair and Iris Eyes [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1817041
Comments: 22
Kudos: 49





	Cornflower Blue; or, A Small Piece of Heaven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Khalehla](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khalehla/gifts).



> This is an unofficial sequel to The Difference Between Thriving and Surviving (my fill for the Flower Shop prompt of 2020's Cherik Week) though it can just as well be read as a stand-alone piece! Many thanks to Khalehla for addressing the possibility of it in the comments 😂 Procrastinating on this gave me time to also procrastinate on _other stuff_ I should write.  
> All the thanks to my wonderful beta [FlightInFlame](https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightinflame/pseuds/flightinflame) as well 💖

Charles hissed. “Oh no.”

"What’s wrong, Professor?” little Bobby asked him and stood on his tippy-toes to peer onto the raised bed. There, the earth was all muddled and several young plants already stretched their dainty leaves towards the sun. “Can I see? Is it planted yet?”

"No, wait. Just give me a minute, everything’s fine,” said Charles and then proceeded to grasp at fistfuls of earth to cover up the part where the stem of Bobby’s sunflower seedling had broken.

Damn, but he was a bloody idiot. Raven had always been the one with green fingers, even when they had been just children playing in the Xavier mansion’s extensive grounds, and to this day, nothing had changed. Where had he got the thought that handling his students’ baby plants himself would be a good idea?

Then again, had he let them plant their seedlings out instead, he would have had to listen to a lot more crying and curses. After all, they were all mutants, just coming into their powers and as wobbly in their use as new-born giraffes were on their legs, and he had known no seedlings would be immune to enormous heat, biting cold or razor-sharp claws.

He sighed, patted down the clayey Genoshan soil around the stem of Bobby’s sunflower so it wouldn’t sag like it had just been, well, _broken_ – _You’re such an idiot, Charles_ , he repeated to himself – and let the boy have a good look at it.

Bobby grinned and clapped his hands, and the air around him spawned tiny ice crystals which danced in the rays of the afternoon sun, making for a jolly little display of power. “Thank you, Mr Xavier! I can’t wait to see its blossom, if it’ll turn out red or yellow! Wait, lemme go get John, I wanna show him!” And off he was, darting between the raised beds of the school garden towards where another group was weeding the tomato plot and St. John Allerdyce had just narrowly avoided scorching the younger Summers brother’s favourite _Cheers_ shirt.

Charles sighed and stretched in his chair, making his spine pop in places where it probably shouldn’t. There was a faint breeze rustling through the treetops around the glade Erik had cleared for their kids’ school garden. Charles smiled when the warm current of air came to caress his cheeks, ruffle his thinning hair and made the seedlings on their stems dance in the honeyed sunlight.

Today was a good day. A fine day. A day filled with the laughter of his pupils as they filed into their classroom, as he taught them knowledge of nature, of farming and of politics which they would need later, no matter whether they chose to remain on Genosha for all their lives or sought to reintegrate into the human world.

Yes, living on Genosha was exhausting. Yes, sometimes he lay awake at night, staring into the darkness coiling above him, worrying about all the evil people who could come after their children. Yes, said children were part of why he had to ask Erik for back and head massages in the evening because his mind was just so strained under all their screaming and whining and snickering that sometimes, he felt like pulling all of his and Erik’s shared bed’s blankets and hand-knitted comforters over his form, just to bury himself in the homey smell of his husband and never resurface again.

There was still so much work to do on Genosha: clear more forest for more fields and houses which in turn were destined for the accommodation and nourishment of the constant stream of new mutant arrivals; set up a _real_ school with _real_ accrediting by the government, not this joke of morning-only classes Charles was currently teaching; argue about property rights, communal squares and who got to put their market stall where.

But they were coming along. Erik had not been among the first mutants to brave the wilderness of the Genoshan peninsula, but he and his allies had brought about the biggest innovations.

And now, Charles was here, too. And he knew he would stay for the rest of his life.

He was just frowning down at his sachet of sunflower seeds when there came voices from the path cutting through the clearing. Voices which were not his children’s.

Looking up, he saw a group of field workers pass, with mud on their boots and dust on their overalls and wide smiles on their weather-worn faces. Some waved to him and the young students they saw frolicking between the raised beds, their tentacles or feathered fingers stiff from a long morning of uninterrupted work, and he waved back, telepathy reaching out and appeasing headaches and back pains where he could.

And then, there was a tug at the silver band of his old-fashioned wristwatch, and he twisted to see his husband marching up to him, already the tail light of the company of farmers.

“Why, hullo there, stranger,” Charles greeted Erik when he was only a few feet away. “Long time no see.”

Erik’s smile lit up the clearing like a miniature supernova. “Hallo, Schöner. Have the children chewed off your ears yet?”

“Not quite, no.” Shucking off his gardener’s gloves, Charles gestured for Erik to come over. A flash of blue caught his eye, and his smile widened at the sight of a single cornflower tucked behind his husband’s ear. “But I’m positive that day _will_ arrive in the foreseeable future.”

“Hrm.” Erik went willingly when Charles slung his arms around his waist and pulled him down onto the woollen blanket over his lap. “But it is going well? You really don’t think this is too much for you to handle?”

The smell of earth and sweat and sunshine clung to Erik’s hair as Charles nuzzled his neck, made him shiver in delight. “Oh darling,” he crooned lowly, “don’t believe that my students back at Columbia were much easier. They might have been older, but they could still be incredibly exhausting.”

A content hum his only answer, Charles’ husband leaned back, craned his neck so he could bury his head in the juncture between Charles’ shoulder and jaw, fireworks of pleasure going off between the thoughts crowding his mind. And when he grasped the professor’s hands, Charles smiled.

The smoother ring of skin where Erik’s wedding band had once been had long disappeared, hardened by the Genoshan fieldwork and Charles’ soft kisses. Grime was caked under Erik’s fingernails, and Charles rejoiced at the reminder that in the evening, they would have to follow their usual routine: Erik sitting in the steaming bathtub of their little home, with Charles right beside him taking a sponge to his hands to scrape the last crumbs of dirt from them, relishing the little purrs his husband would give (of course, he also valued the moment he could move on to washing Erik’s hair, massaging his scalp with deft fingers to draw unguarded moans from those delicate lips, but Erik’s handsome hands were another matter entirely).

They did not need any token to confirm their marriage – there was no necessity for the restraints of Erik’s former disaster of wedlock. No, the knowledge that they knew they belonged to one another and one another only was anchored deeply in both their minds.

For a few minutes, they just sat like that, the Genoshan sun warming their cheeks, the air around them in constant movement as the trees whispered and the children chattered in the distance. A stray bee came to buzz around them, taking greedy interest in the cornflower behind Erik’s ear, before it discovered the ruse and flew off to try her luck elsewhere. Charles’ smile against his husband’s ashen hair widened at the quiet serenity of it all.

Then, he remembered his issue from just a few moments ago.

“Erik,” he whispered, lips brushing the shell of his husband’s ear, “do you by any chance know of a mutant who can accelerate plant growth?”

Of course, his husband – ever the most ardent defender of Mutant and Proud – perked up promptly and said, “Why, we have about a dozen of botanopaths on Genosha. There’s Lin, or Rictor, or Klara Prast – but she’s currently visiting the mainland, so not an option – and I think the Ochoa-Diaz kid might even be in one of your morning classes–”

“No! Um, sorry, but no.” Charles smiled sheepishly at Erik, who had twisted around in his lap and was now giving him a dismayed look for his verbal outburst. “I– If possible, I would prefer someone who is _not_ in any contact with my pupils–”

Erik’s eyebrows went up. “What have you done _now_?”

“I– Nothing!” Charles spluttered, outraged. “I just– Well, the sunflower seedlings aren’t all that robust– and my dexterity–”

“– is excellent in bed but less so in the garden, it seems. Whose plant needs to be re-grown?”

With a huff, Charles nodded to Bobby approaching them, tugging his struggling best friend John with him by the shirt sleeve.

“Look!” the boy crooned, all but shoving the Allerdyce kid’s into the Genoshan soil where his sunflower was planted, unaware yet of the damage Charles had done only minutes ago. “Professor Xavier says its coy– coat–”

“Cotyledons,” Charles prompted gently.

“– says that its _cotyledons_ – yes, thank you, Professor – are about to die and that that’s a good sign because it means it’s pumping energy in the real leaves now! And he says it’ll maybe have a bloom already in a few weeks and _then_ I’m going to cut it off and give it to you because you’re my bestest friend and I want you to always remember me and that I love you!”

Charles watched with growing amusement as fond confusion washed over John’s features before he was tackled in an enthusiastic bear hug by Bobby and the two of them toppled over in the short grass, laughing and squealing. Erik, Charles’ arms still slung around his middle, chuckled.

_I’m going to ask Rictor to come over and replace their seedling with a healthy one._ Then, he leaned down to whisper, “Really, Charles. You know so much about flowers, and still you seem unable to handle them properly.”

“I’m handling _you_ properly, aren’t I?” Charles answered, tightening his grip on Erik’s waist, before he decided to throw any caution to the wind and leaned up for a proper kiss.

It wasn’t perfect. Erik’s lips tasted like soil and sweat, and Charles’ own were cracked, unaccustomed to Genosha’s dry and salty sea air. The cornflower behind Erik’s ear had slid forward, was now tickling Charles’ jaw.

But the sun was warm on their faces, Erik’s hands on Charles’ shoulders were firm, and there was not a place in the world where Charles would have rather been.

“Eww,” came John’s boisterous complaint, quickly followed by a shrill exclamation of “Aw, yuck!” from Bobby. “Adults kissing is gross,” the two boys concluded in unison.

Erik drew back and grinned at them. “You’re saying that now…” he began, but Charles was quick to poke him in the ribs.

_They’ll know for themselves soon enough_ , he told his husband, and out loud he said, “Why don’t you two go fetch the others? We’re finished here, so we might as well get back to looking at volume measurements in the classroom.”

Groaning and griping, Charles’ students complied, trudging over to the courgette plot where the Grey orphan girl had decided she had enough of the younger Summer brother’s antics and had him currently secured in a telekinetic grasp over her head while she picked the last weeds. Erik watched them go with a proud smile.

“They will make wonderful young people one day,” he said and turned back to Charles, “and if they choose to leave Genosha, humankind will have no choice but to accept them as they are.”

“Indeed.” Charles smiled quietly, thought back to Irene and Raven’s flower- slash coffee shop in the bustling heart of New York. Their mutant brothers and sisters were looking upon a bright future after all. A future neither he nor Erik nor their families could ever have dreamt of…

Erik getting up from his lap roused him from his musings.

“I need to go,” his husband said, nodding into the direction of the Genoshan settlement. “Ororo asked me to help with the alteration of her open attic, and she won’t be able to replace those iron struts alone. And I think you’ll have a handful of screaming noisy children to deal with soon.”

“Well, if you put it like that...” _I’m really looking forward to our bath in the evening._ Charles sighed. “See you at the communal dinner, love.”

Pulling his working gloves back on, Erik grinned. “You’ll survive this morning, too. You’re the best teacher the children could have ever wished for, and without you, we would probably still be waging that paper-warfare with the US government.” Then, like an afterthought, he reached up and pulled the cornflower – its vibrant blue untouched even by the heat of the sun and the jostling of the fieldwork – from his hair. “Here. Für Treue und Beständigkeit, Schatz.”

“For fidelity and steadiness,” Charles echoed, and then he watched his gorgeous husband’s retreating back, smiling despite all his worries and exhaustion.

Around him, Genosha breathed and bustled with the activity of late morning. In his grasp, the cornflower stood steady and upright: A small piece of heaven sent down by the sky to dwell among the living, blessing them with its eternal blue – so ran the legend.

Charles smiled. He had found his very own cornflower. And he had certainly found his heaven. 

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! If you did, please consider leaving kudos and a comment. It doesn't have to be anything elaborate, just a "+kudos" or a "loved it!" would make my day!!! It means so much to an author to see people take the time to actually type out words instead of simply hitting one (1) button, and it's a very easy way to make us writers - who dedicate so much of our free time to create content for you - happy!


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